Marauders, Inc
by Envy and Fury
Summary: MWPP Era AU. In which the Marauders are Private Investigators, Voldemort attempts to build a criminal empire and plenty of shenanigans are involved when they try to stop him. Featuring Peter the second-hand furniture store owner, Remus the badass, Bellatrix the exotic dancer, Tom Riddle - office worker by day, crime lord by night.
1. Prologue: Legacy

So this is the beginning of what will be a rather large, ambitious story, so here's to hoping it goes well. Mind you, this is only the prologue, the Marauders will show up in the first chapter, and more and more characters will appear over the course of the story.

I'd love to hear what you think, so please review.

* * *

><p><strong>Prologue: Legacy (Anagrams are Always a Good Idea)<strong>

"_Of course… I should have known…_"

It made complete sense in hindsight. Tom had spent so much time looking at the Riddle family history, he'd completely neglected his mother's family.

At least until now.

He deeply regretted not putting more effort into finding out who his mother was before this. Merope Gaunt came from exceptional stock – that is, if by "exceptional", one meant "infamous". The Gaunt family had a long history as direct descendants of Salazar Slytherin, one of the most notorious crime lords of the past century.

_Lord Tom Riddle_… he thought. The title sounded nice, but _Riddle_ less so, now that he knew what sort of a man his father had been. (Boring, in case you were wondering. Impressively worthless for such a rich man.)

He would need a new name if he was to further the family legacy.

Carefully, he considered his options. _Tom_ and _Riddle_, and any variants thereof were out of the question. Marvolo was the name of his grandfather… who was almost as useless as his father. The most recent generations of Gaunts had fallen so far from their ancestors' disastrously illegal glory.

_Besides which, I will be my own person. I will have my own name_.

Which left only one option… make a whole new name.

On the surface, he would have to continue as regular old Tom Riddle, the (in his opinion) handsome, charming, overlooked middle manager, but under cover of darkness (figurative darkness, but occasionally also literal darkness) he would be someone else, someone new and exciting.

He would single-handedly revive the Gaunt legacy.

Or better yet, start his own.

An anagram then, he decided. Anagrams were clever, right? He'd always been quite good at anagrams.

_Tom Marvolo Riddle._

Straight away, he pulled out "I am". A good place to start.

_I am… Remold Rod Volt? Odd Mover Troll, Drover Doll Tom…_

He could do "lord" as well. Crime lord, after all.

_I am Lord… Dolt Mover._

He frowned. While an apt description (he was planning to "move" a lot of dolts), it didn't exactly strike fear into trembling hearts and make people plead for mercy.

_I am Lord…_

Fuck it. He would just be Batman.

Lord Batman.


	2. One: Opportunity

So this is the first proper chapter of Marauders, Inc., and I'm pretty excited about it. Please drop me a review to let me know what you think, and feel free to make any suggestions for improving.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter One: Opportunity (Working for James Potter Does Not Pay Well)<strong>

"'Voldemort'? What kind of daft fucker calls themselves 'Voldemort'?"

This exclamation could be heard coming from a rather nondescript shop on Downing Street. The entire street was filled with the same sort of buildings, which meant that Shop 16B was just a grey square in a row of grey squares with only two signs setting it apart from the rest – one below the other, they read: _Pettigrew's Second Hand Furniture Shop_, and _Marauders Incorporated, Private Investigators_.

Pettigrew's Second Hand Furniture Shop was the very epitome of a stereotypical second hand furniture store – a bit dusty, silent, decorations stacked on coffee tables stacked on dining tables, and a lot of things people were afraid to touch for fear of bringing the whole thing down.

It was a rare thing that a customer wandered inside, and rarer still that they made a purchase. This was why Peter Pettigrew – owner of aforementioned shop – was devastated when James "No Sense of Propriety" Potter's thoughtlessly crude exclamation caused a woman to hurry out, ushering her small child in front of her.

"Dammit James! Watch your bloody tongue around customers!" Peter scolded.

James had the good sense to look contrite. "Sorry. I just… forgot, I guess?"

Peter flapped his hand at James (the near-universal gesture for "get out of my goddamn sight") and grumbled quietly about "people who never learned, particularly those named James Potter".

Wisely, James beckoned to Remus, and they retreated into the backroom.

"One of these days, he's going to kick us out." Remus told his friend. "Or maybe just you."

The backroom served as their headquarters. It was messy (Sirius preferred the term "chaotic organisation" – "it makes it harder for other people to find things!" which would have been a fair point if it did not also make it harder for _them_ to find things) and looked terribly unappealing, but it worked. It wasn't like they had a better option, at any rate.

"They" were Marauders Incorporated, a fledgling private investigator firm James had founded after failing to find employment he liked with his Bachelor's Degree in Justice. (By his logic: cops were plebeian, the military was too uptight, private security involved snobs, and government security involved _governments_.)

Sirius, his childhood friend, had been the next to join after his parents disinherited him of the family business (_Black's Bees_ – _the Best Bees in Town_), thus forcing him to recant the vow he had made as a child to "never ever work, ever". Unfortunately, he had zero credentials, having dropped out of university after a semester and a half of partying and not paying attention, relying on _not_ being disowned so he could live off the family fortune. After three months of whining, and three months of James saying "no, you don't have the necessary qualifications to join my esteemed company", James caved first and let him join. (Neither of them actually knew what the "necessary qualifications" were.)

Then had come Remus, who had been one of the only friends Sirius had managed to keep from his brief stint at university. (Sirius had an interesting method of making friends – "annoy someone until they give in and accept you as a permanent part of their life. If necessary, shower them with expensive gifts".) Remus, however, thought that Marauders Inc. didn't meet _his_ "necessary qualifications", with those qualifications being (a) a desk, (b) for the company to actually be registered as a company "so it's not just like a weird cult or something", (c) for Sirius to stop sending him invites to stupid Facebook games, and (d) Fenrir Greyback's head on a pike ("or failing that, some help to put it there… or you know, just get him arrested. Either one, really.").

Peter, who James had befriended in university, had helped with qualification (a) by renting out his seldom used backroom to them to use as office space and their headquarters (desk included). In return, James had bestowed the questionable honour of "Maraudership" upon him, declaring him to be "one of us, one of us, one of us". Peter still wasn't entirely sure how he felt about the whole thing, but considering that no one had hired them yet, not even for one teensy job, it didn't really seem to be a problem, so he let it slide.

Remus' other demands had taken longer to meet – so long that at one point, Remus looked to be doing a great job of interfering with Greyback's gang's protection racket all by himself and Sirius feared he might not join at all. As it happened though, fear was a great motivator, and after several incidences (half of which were declared "never to be spoken of again") and life lessons learned (with a particularly memorable one involving the differences between soap and shower gel in various soups), somehow, _somehow_, they had managed to more or less meet all of Remus' requirements (they were still working on the last one though).

And then there were four.

Remus watched James patiently as he skimmed the file about the most recent string of murders.

"So… they started as disappearances," James stated, more to himself than to Remus. He often read and thought aloud. "Until three days ago, they showed up displayed in – in '_a remarkably artistic style_'? Who wrote this?"

"I compiled it from several articles and reports." Remus replied, "Check the footnotes or whatever, it should be there."

"So if this was done three days ago, I suppose we won't be able to see it in person?" James frowned.

"Unfortunately. I did manage to get a couple of details though – couple of pages down."

James immediately flipped forwards several pages. "Is this it?" he asked, pointing.

Remus looked over James' shoulder. "Ah, yep, that's the one." He indicated a particular paragraph and read it to his friend. "'The bodies were found posed in sitting positions on the back stairwell – one corpse to each step. On the wall, words had been painted in blood: _I am Lord Voldemort. Beware the heir._'"

"That's mental." James said bluntly.

"You want it?" Remus asked.

"Of course I want it. This could be our big break and then we might actually get people who pay us to do this! Imagine that! If we get hired for things, we could earn a living! This is the beginning of something great!" James said enthusiastically.

"That's what you said about the Grindelwald thing too, and you were _years_ too late for that!" Peter called from the front room.

"Shut up." James snapped, thoroughly embarrassed. He could feel his cheeks reddening and wished he could stop it. Remus had the good grace to pretend not to notice.

"Good afternoon, my cherished companions!" Sirius waltzed through the door. "James." he added.

James rolled his eyes and thrust the file of papers into Sirius' hands. "Read." he said.

"Already did, Jamesy. I helped put it together, even." Sirius bragged. "What do you think? Where should we start?"

"Give me a night to go through all this?" James requested. "And we can start bright-eyed and bushy-tailed tomorrow morning."

-o-o-o-o-

It was noon by the time they finally met up at what James called "the most inconspicuous café in town".

"My tail is not bushy." Sirius complained. "I didn't sleep well last night."

"By 'didn't sleep well', he means dragged me out drinking with him until the pub closed." Remus clarified. "Karaoke was involved."

Peter rolled his eyes, and opened his mouth to deliver a scathingly witty comparison of Sirius' intellect and that of teaspoons, probably involving the frog-boot incident.

Before he could do so, James interrupted, living up to his various nicknames (No-Sense-of-Propriety Potter, James the Constant Interruption, Ruiner of Things). "We attack at dawn!" he announced with embellished grandeur. "By which I mean we conduct a slow infiltration over several weeks to find out, first: who Voldemort really is, and second: who he is working with or for. I have complied a list of the ten most likely candidates, in order of evilness. It may or may not surprise you that I have files on each one of them. Whatever the case, I have printed the basic information sheets for you all to read over."

He handed them each a small sheaf of papers and waited for applause.

There was none. As a general rule, Sirius was uninclined to ever applaud efforts that weren't his own, Peter was more concerned with the suspicious glances they were getting from the wait staff of the restaurant they were currently occupying and Remus had already started flicking through James' somewhat perplexing notes.

After a substantial moment of silence, Remus spoke up.

"Right then," he said, "I can see why no one ever took you seriously, James."

James gaped dramatically. "What do you mean? I've been very professional in my notes!"

Remus sighed. James probably actually believed that.

"See, real law enforcement don't have a 'Level of Evil' category," Remus pointed out, holding up the first sheet of paper as an example. "You also can't discriminate against someone based on their nationality."

"Okay, first: evilness is absolutely a legitimate and necessary measurement!" James protested, "Second: I most definitely did _not_ discriminate against anyone."

"Right here, Potter," Remus said, decidedly unimpressed as he pointed to the line that said "+5 to Level of Evil on account of French ancestry".

"That's just France! It's not a _real_ country!"

"France is a perfectly real country, and it's still discrimination! There are _laws_ against that. You should know! You did law in university."

"You know, technically I did a Bachelor of _Justice_, but okay, fine, I'll take it out later." James conceded, with a tragically disappointed look on his face.

"Good. That being said, you do have some valid opinions," Remus continued.

"'_Some_'?" James asked, dismayed.

"Yes, '_some_'." Remus confirmed. "Now, since you're the technical head of the company, what would you like to do with the _some_ you have come up with?"

"Well, I was thinking –"

"Nothing good ever comes of _that_," Sirius laughed.

James bristled at the interruption. "Nothing good ever comes of _your face_," he retorted. Sirius was suitably cowed – which was to say, not at all. "Anyway, as I was saying, one of the places we should definitely investigate is the Creed."

Peter wrinkled his nose in distaste. Everyone knew the Creed, by name or not. It was that one shady bar that absolutely every town seems to have where characters of questionable morals would conduct secret business and miserable commoners would drowns their sorrows.

It was also the bar where Bellatrix Black ran off to when she got bored of pretending to help run the family business.

Which was why James, Peter and Remus were all staring expectantly at Sirius as soon as the Creed was mentioned.

"What?" Sirius asked, ever oblivious. "What's with the looks?"

"Do you think you could talk to your cousin?" James suggested.

Sirius paled, and pretended not to know what James was talking about. "My cousin? Andromeda? Sure, I talk to her all the time. Not sure what you think I –"

"No, Sirius," James rolled his eyes. "Bellatrix. Talk to Bellatrix."


	3. Two: Pathways

Chapter Two is up! (But I guess you know that.) Thank you to all those who reviewed, favourited, followed or any combination thereof.

I hope you enjoy this chapter as well. Please let me know what you think.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Two: Pathways (Studies Have Shown Colour Coding Aids Memory)<strong>

The issue with trying to start a criminal empire, Tom had realised, was deciding where to begin.

He knew where he wanted to be, just not to how to get there. As it turned out, googling "how to start a criminal empire" was (in his case, at least) maybe 14% helpful at best. Most of the advice was something along the lines of either "don't fall in love/get blinded by pussy, because that shit gone turn on you", "get into debt with mysterious strangers with vaguely foreign accents" or "run for office".

None of that seemed like good advice, except _perhaps_ the first. Even then, it was only marginally useful. Lord Voldemort did not waste his time courting pretty girls. (He'd scrapped the idea of being Lord Batman when he remembered that Batman _stopped_ criminals. Lord Loki, on the other hand, had been tempting.)

Organising a murder, for instance, was surprisingly difficult. It had taken him far too long to manage the last one. _Well_, he smirked, _the last series of murders, really_. Offed them one by one, slowly and surely, then prettied them up just the way he wanted them found.

Unfortunately, something so spectacular would have to be followed up by something equally spectacular. Otherwise, he'd just be some wannabe, some punk-ass kid that old men would tell to get off their lawns.

He needed money, an ongoing source of it. A benevolent benefactor. A personal patron. A splendid sponsor. A marvellous money-maker (well, money _granter_, was more like it, but the alliteration was, in his opinion, rather charming). A generous… gentleman? That didn't sound right at all. He'd run out of words, so he figured it was probably better if he just stopped with the alliterations.

For all that this was a relatively small town, it hosted more than its fair share of wealth. Now he just had to pick whose riches he wanted, and then convince them to give it to him (a task, he imagined, that would be easier said than done, but he had faith in his creativity).

-o-o-o-o-

Trixie gave her audience a falsely demure smile and a flourishing curtsy, letting her skirt rustle up around her legs as she did so. She flounced down from the small makeshift stage and headed for the bar, an end-of-the-night tradition, so to speak. Slowly, one by one, her audience trickled out of the bar to stumble home.

"Heya, Amycus." She grinned at the bartender, leaning over _just so_ that her cleavage fell right into his line of sight. Her grey eyes sparked with mischief as he made an effort to actually look at her face.

"Miss Trixie," Amycus responded with a wink. "How can I pay you for your astounding performance?"

Trixie chewed on her lower lip idly as she deliberated. "How 'bout a screwdriver?"

"Your wish is my command," Amycus chuckled. "Screwdriver it is."

The door swung open; its rusty hinges squeaked in protest. Sirius Black poked his head inside.

She went from jovial to darkly irritated the second her cousin stepped foot inside the Creed. This was _her_ place.

"It's after hours," Amycus said, "we're not serving anymore."

"It's quite alright, Am," Trixie told him, "I don't think he's here for a drink."

Amycus raised an eyebrow at her tone, which had dropped dangerously. "Sure thing, Trix." he said, letting her deal with it.

"Sirius!" Bellatrix called out to him, taking control of the conversation before it began. "Come! I didn't expect to see you here. Hours _are_ over, like Amycus said, but that means nothing for family, right?"

Sirius ventured over, hands stuck in his pockets as he sauntered slowly, trying to look comfortable with his surroundings. He did not succeed.

"Something strong for my dear cousin, Amycus," Bellatrix requested when Sirius sat next to her. "He's _far_ more tolerable when he's drunk."

"It's good to see you again, Bellatrix." Sirius offered her a sham of a smile. He took the drink Amycus set in front of him. "Friday nights at the Creed, huh? I wonder what dear Uncle Cygnus thinks."

Bellatrix scowled. "He doesn't, and he wouldn't believe _you_ if you told him. Keep your fucking nose out of my business, Sirius, and I won't hack it off."

"Can I talk to you alone?"

"How about no?" she responded, distinctly annoyed. "I don't enjoy your company, Sirius." To emphasise her point, she drained half of her drink before facing him again.

"Look, this isn't a personal visit." he snapped. "I'm not doing this for fun. If anything, I enjoy your company less than you enjoy mine."

Amycus wisely moved away from the quarrelling cousins.

"Fine," Bellatrix huffed, "fine. But I'm not leaving this place with you. We talk here or not at all."

"Fine." Sirius echoed. His mouth twisted unhappily, the face of someone who had bitten into a particularly sour lemon without intending to (somehow).

"Amycus," Bellatrix called out, "be a dear and trust me to lock up, won't you?"

Amycus shrugged. "Righto, Trix, but I'm holding you liable if the place burns down sometime between now and forever."

Bellatrix shot him her sweetest smile. "Of course." She turned to Sirius, and her smile warped into a grin not unlike what you might see on a shark. "Come then, _Siri_, what's on your mind?"

He bristled at the nickname, but let it go, reminding himself all the while that this was for the greater good. After all, what was a few minutes of enduring an insufferable cousin to solving the hottest mystery currently stumping the police?

Not too much, right?

Sirius hoped so.

-o-o-o-o-

It was about approximately 4:27 in the bloody morning when Remus received a phone call. He always slept with his phone on, never turned in to silent (unless, of course, he was in a movie theatre; Remus Lupin may or may not have been many things, but rude was not one of them, except for extenuating circumstances, such as dealing with Greyback's gang or a particularly exasperating Sirius Black).

Incidentally, the call was from the latter. Sirius had set up a rather charming image of himself of Remus' phone, one with his hair slicked back, cross-eyed and his tongue touching his nose.

"Hello?" Remus said into the phone.

What he got in response was a somewhat hysterical bout of giggling more suited to small children than to a man grown.

"Sirius, are you quite alright?" Remus inquired of his friend.

More giggling, then, "_Reeeeemus_… I talked – I did the talking to Bella."

"And then you got drunk?" Remus said flatly. The answer was almost guaranteed to be yes.

"I think!" Sirius declared loudly, then dropped to a whisper, "I think there was something in my drink. Something that wasn't alcohols. And then also alcohols."

_Fuck_. He hoped Sirius hadn't been poisoned. He wouldn't have thought Bellatrix would have, but then again…

"Okay, Sirius," he said calmly, "tell me where you are and I'll come pick you up."

"I'm on Mains Road." Sirius told him unhelpfully. Mains Road ran most of the way through the city, and for some bizarre reason, Remus didn't really fancy driving all through town looking for his friend when he could pinpoint a location with only a little bit of irritated sighing (and, if necessary, some forceful shouting).

Remus gave the irritated sigh a shot. "Is there an intersection nearby? A landmark? Are you still at the Creed?"

"Yes, and then no, and then no again." Sirius responded, with only a slight slur to his words. "Intersection is Mains and Carr Street. That's Carr with a C-A-R-R. Did you get that? Carr with a _Carr_."

"Yep, got it. I'll be there soon, Sirius. Don't go anywhere, okay?"

"Kay," Sirius mumbled, and then made a rather peculiar noise. "I'm not gonna vomit, promise."

Remus frowned. Whenever Sirius said that, it usually meant that he was indeed going to vomit, probably within the next three minutes and then possibly several times after that.

He retrieved a bucket, and drove off to find his friend.

-o-o-o-o-

Tom – no, Lord Voldemort, he had to stop thinking of himself as measly old _Tom_ – pulled out his colour-coded spreadsheets. They were, of course, notes on the wealthiest people in the city and the likelihood of getting them the sponsor his nefarious plans. (He'd drawn up a scatterplot as well, but he couldn't quite remember which variable went on which axis, so he'd just put _Amount of Money_ on the _x_-axis and _Chance of Success_ on the _y_-axis.)

So far, things were looking grim. He had narrowed down a few candidates when it came to _Amount of Money_, but so far, _Chance of Success_ hovered around zero for all of them, mostly because he had met exactly none of these people.

Which was why he had set aside a day for investigating. Namely, today. And possibly tomorrow, if need be. But not the day after, because that was Monday, and he had to go to work, aspiring crime lord or not.

The first name on his list was the one who he figured would be the most pliable to suggestion (and then maybe threats) – Mary Macdonald, who had amassed a considerable amount of money through writing trashy romance novels, the most famous of which, _An Effervescent Affair_, remained one of the highest selling e-books, presumably because actually walking in to a bookstore to purchase such drivel would earn you the hastily concealed judgement of everyone there. Not that Voldemort would know.

Apparently, she was very open to chatting to fans about her work. Hopefully that meant she would be easy to track down and talk to about her money. Tom – Voldemort – had traversed the internet earlier, and found a fair few interviews, one of which was kind enough to attach an email address. Mary seemed oddly down to earth for the author of one of the most famous trashy romance novels to bless (curse?) this world.

And so he sat down to write an email. Funny, how building the basis for a criminal empire was so much like work, sending emails to this person and that, but at least he hadn't had to fetch someone coffee yet (his current workplace, Everard Insurance, had a technically-unofficial-but-still-followed-to-the-letter-lest-you-be-frowned-upon policy that fetching your colleagues coffee and just generally being nice was good for the soul).

_Hello Mary,_ he began. An auspicious start, to be sure.

_I've read a few of your books, and I must say, I'm a big fan! I really admire your work and your success, would you mind answering a few questions? For instance, how much money do you make per book? And would you be willing to part with that money?_

He deleted the last two sentences, and opting instead for something simpler.

_I'd be very grateful if you would meet with me. Please write back soon. _

_Thank you very much, _

_Voldemort_

Then he realised that he had painted the name "Voldemort" over twelve or fifteen corpses in the blood of those same corpses, so signing it as such might make her disinclined to help a man in need. With a scowl, he deleted that as well, and forced himself to punch out three letters – _T-o-m_. And then six more – _R-i-d-d-l-e_.

Names were such a bother.

-o-o-o-o-

Bellatrix smirked to herself. While she had told Sirius that no, she wasn't a criminal, and yes, she would tell him if she saw anything suspicious, she had never promised not to do some investigating of her own. She had also not promised just _when_ she would tell him if she saw something suspicious, and even if she had, she was A-OK with breaking that promise.

Boredom was her greatest enemy, and she went to great lengths to avoid it. Sirius had just, unknowingly, presented her with a great gift – a hint at something _fascinating_. There was a certain intrigue that surrounded crimes and their culprits, (not so much petty crimes though, graffiti wasn't much of a turn-on at all). Perhaps it was the rebelliousness, the danger involved.

After all, Bellatrix did not do as she was _supposed_. Bellatrix did what she _wanted_, especially when everyone else (particularly her father, sisters or annoying cousins) called it a bad idea.

She strolled through the city's entertainment district easily and headed for the most prominent building there – Le Rêve Tortueux (often shortened to its first two words, the easiest for "the commoners" to (mis)pronounce), a recently opened and very successful casino (and hotel and conference centre, but mostly casino) run by Rodolphus Lestrange, who himself was well-known for being absurdly wealthy.

It took a fair amount of effort not to gape at the scene before her when she entered. The place was remarkable to say the least. A high ceiling that had been cleverly designed to look like the night sky, gilded patterns along every wall. Bellatrix blended in well, looking every part the slightly snobby, bored, rich young hellspawn looking for entertainment. No doubt old grandfathers would shake their fists at her if she stepped on their lawns.

For a moment, she let herself simply observe the surroundings to see who was where. It was difficult to tell, at least until she heard the commotion.

"_What_? You dare accuse _me_ of cheating?" a voice yelled. Most people barely paid it any notice, but Bellatrix followed like a hound on the hunt.

She tracked the source of the noise to one of the blackjack tables, where a bandy-legged, long haired ginger was shouting about how he was "one of the most upstanding, honourable citizens in this godforsaken city". Next to him stood a rather large blond man who looked like he could lift large trees with little to no effort. If a scuffle broke out, Bellatrix was betting on tree guy.

When she crept closer (that is, if by "crept" one meant "calmly and inconspicuously strolled over"), she saw another figure of interest standing nearby, observing the interaction – the owner of Le Rêve. Bellatrix smiled. Clearly, she had arrived at the right time.

Tree-guy clasped a large hand around the protester and moved to escort him away. The protester, however, clearly had other ideas, and tried to twist away. Lestrange turned to him, leaned in, and said, "What, you want Thorfinn to carry you like a sulking child? If not, then _walk_, Fletcher."

Fletcher did.

And Bellatrix followed behind them all.


End file.
